While I agree that this artwork of Mr. Ford is nice and cool and fun -- I also believe we can't have people just running around our community slapping up artwork wherever and whenever they feel like it. We have processes and rules for installing community art, and I believe those rules should be followed.

If not, don't come crying when someone puts up an equally tasteful rendering of someone the majority of our community find quite distasteful.

No one is paying a single dime for my healthcare. Not one cent. Why should I pay for "women's" healthcare? Let them pay for it themselves -- or start paying for mine.

You want a condom? Go to Meijer. Can't afford it yourself? Cancel cable, cut back on eating out, reduce the number of times you rent a movie -- take care of YOURSELF. (This goes for breast exams, pap smears, and the rest of it.)

At best, stop using tax dollars to pay for it. If the philanthropic community wants to pay for it, let them. Stop forcing taxpayers to do it -- OR PAY FOR MINE.

I have to agree. The photo selected to go with this article certainly does not seem to be unbiased. Was this Mr. Heartwell at the moment he denounced the "forces of darkness" or just a snapshot of a fraction of a second -- a mere moment of time?

While I think about it, I wonder what motivates these types of articles ... the ones that attempt to rehash a topic that has already been hashed out? Anyone who wanted to comment on this topic did so -- as is the premise of the article.

It feels like pointing that fact out, which is all the article does, is an attempt to elicit pretty much the same -- is this a number's game? Does this someone allow MLive to better position its readership status so it can bolster its advertising rates?

Anyway, I have to disagree with Mr. Heartwell's approach to discussing this issue. Oh well.

The "New Atheists," as they are known today, believe that, overwhelmingly, the bad things that happen in our world are a direct result of a belief in a god. (The attacks on 9/11 were a catalyst for the New Atheists, as the attackers claimed to do so in the name of their god.)

They believe that if you get rid of god/religion, you get rid of a prominent reason for violence.

Read some of the writings or watch some of the debates of John Lennox at johnlennox.org to get a better understanding of why the New Atheists seek to convert theists.

1. We have a Constitutional Right to confront our accusers. The Constitution does not add "but *only* if we are clearly innocent." Confronting our accusers, especially agents of the state, whether we are guilty or not helps ensure our civil rights are not being trampled.

I see the local law enforcement have taken it upon themselves to scare the citizens away from exercising their Constitional Rights -- they say in this article that if we *dare* confront them, we will be punished even more harshly.

You expect such thinking from a police state.

2. I want to know how much of the Grand Rapids city budget is made up of revenue from tickets and other penalties of law.

How much revenue does the city anticipate receiving, now that we know from this article that tickets and other penalties are thought of by state agents as a revenue stream.

How many officers' jobs are protected because of the revenue they bring in through tickets and other penalties?

What is each officer's monthly quota for the number of tickets they are to issue? Is the quota based on volume or dollar value?

What agency can we report that the officers of our city consider we are a police state and view us, the citizens, as cows to milk? Should we forward this article to the ACLU to start?

This is among the dumbest thins I have ever seen in my life, even for the moronic GR Press. Who do I call to cancel my subscription? I'm sure there will be a live person there even though when my paper is not distributed on any given day, I get a message telling me to basically go scr&^% myself.

Enough is enough. The paper is done. This is no longer a matter of opinion, but a matter of taste and style and education.